“But wouldn’t it be better if...”

Those words have come out of my mouth more times than I can count. And just seeing them now is immediately deflating.

Wouldn’t it be better if...

Those words have robbed me of all joy on countless special occasions. Birthdays, weddings, vacations, and especially, the holidays.
The second that I start to feel a smidgen of joy, I snatch it away from myself by fantasizing how it could be better. How it would OBVIOUSLY be better if I just had a boyfriend.

But here’s the thing I’ve learned after many joyless holidays:

I don’t actually KNOW if it would be “better if.”

Maybe what I’m feeling and experiencing here and now is wonderful and beautiful, and I’m missing it by creating something different in my imagination. By playing pretend in my own mind.

Friends, the holidays can be an especially tempting time to live in our imagination.

To fantasize what could be. What “should” be. But while what we are hoping for may in fact one day be incredible in its own way, right now we have today. We have the holidays of right now.

There is joy to be felt and memories to be made at the holidays, but we will most certainly miss them if we spend our time in the “if only” instead of what is.

Dear sister, I ask you this holiday season not to be the robber of your own joy.

If you find yourself enjoying the moment, stay there. Soak it in. Sit in the here and now and fall in love with what is.

Yes, one day it may be different. But it may not be “better if”. Please don’t let what may be trump what is. The goodness, the memories, the now.